Directed by: Magnus von Horn
Distributed by: Mubi
Written by Taylor Baker
88/100
Note to you, the reader: “The Girl with the Needle” is built around a massive reveal that will change your viewing experience if you have it spoiled. If you’ve somehow stumbled upon this review before viewing the film or having it spoiled, do yourself a favor and ensure that you don’t read or watch anything else before you view the film.
Magnus von Horn’s “The Girl with the Needle” details the harrowing life of Karoline, a seamstress at a local clothing factory. Before the film begins, Karoline’s husband, Peter, is called off to fight in the Great War, leaving her to work and keep things running at home until his hopeful return. These circumstances have created a harsh reality for Karoline who is thrown out of her apartment as the film opens. She pleads to her factory owner, Jørgen, for widows assistance at the clothing factory to help her make ends meet. But the government officials can’t find any sign of what happened to Peter, forcing the factory to reject her request and Karoline to relocate.
Things only continue to devolve for Karoline throughout the run time of “The Girl with the Needle.” The direction is restrained but elegant in its precision, often leaving the camera in place and delicately zooming in and out to accentuate an otherwise static composition. Cinematographer Michal Dymek deftly frames interiors and captures exquisite light and shadow work to accentuate the increasingly hellish Copenhagen that Karoline scrapes by in. Puce Mary’s score haunts, chills, and soars along with every choice and consequence Karoline encounters, making for one of the strongest original compositions of the year.
Every instance of relief seems to signify a deal with the devil that will set her down a path of even deeper torture. Von Horn doesn’t flinch from pushing his camera up against the nightmarish actions his film details. Rather than focus the camera on the overt action, he focuses on the figures, their contortion, their dimness in the light, and their grim visages. In a handful of moments though von Horn and Dymek push the camera in for extreme close-ups of Karoline’s eye, and in those moments, her eyes seem to shift from a defeated animal with its back to a wall to a subdued but fiery brilliance, that speaks to an internal determination that the world can’t rob from her.
One could give scores of descriptors to “Sweat,” Magnus von Horn’s previous feature, and perhaps even more to “The Girl with the Needle,” but one of the broader descriptors apt across these two projects is that each is distinctive. “Sweat” is a wholly encapsulated and conjured glimpse into the life of a woman seeking something beyond her reach, with an overt focus on what is and isn’t aesthetically pleasant to view in our modern digital images. While “The Girl with the Needle” has a similar distinct depiction of a female character seeking something beyond her reach, its depiction is harsher with a sharply layered composition to its many frames. “The Girl with the Needle” is one of the best films of the year and a surefire contender for best international film during this year’s awards season. Just be sure you go see it before you read anything else about it.
“The Girl with the Needle” Clip
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